Planted some pear trees years back. Rarely do we get any pears, but the trees are getting big. I would say 12-15 feet tall. The wife was saying that she believes they need lopped off, so they get bushy and produce. I don't know much about fruit trees. Does this make sense to anyone?

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Pruning starts when you plant. With pears since they have a general tendency to upright narrow crotch multiple leaders you want to get it cut back to one central leader and head that one back to force branching. Cut down to just a few scaffolds and tie them down to get wider stronger crotches. Left alone to grow as they will pears tend to shatter and break under the load of fruit.

Several years old and rarely fruits sounds like a pollination problem. Most cultivars are poorly self fertile with some, like Bartlett, self infertile. You need different cultivars that share the same overlapping bloom times. Either a second tree or graft in a branch to an existing tree.

You really cant prune a pear tree to create much change, in terms of overall shape. Pears grow vertical for the most part. Sure you can make a square peg go in a round hole, but its not going to accomplish anything in this case. If you have gotten some pears in the past you probably are having issues with pollination or temperatures when the trees are in bloom or shortly there after. Blossom Blast can be an issue with pears as well. Typically pears are pretty easy to grow, just often takes them longer to begin blooming depending on the root stock they are grafted to.

I've had bad luck pruning pear trees. I've tried it in different seasons and I always get a boom of small branches afterwards. Most of what I have read on pears since, says it's better not to prune them, unless it is absolutely necessary.

It looks like I'm going to have bumper crop of pears this year. I had a very good crop of pears last year.

Keith

We got a pear tree that is producing, but the pears are hard an never seem to ripe. Growing up we had one across the road and I remember atleast if you had the ones on the ground they would be the juiciest ones because of course falling from being ripe. Not to hijack the thread, but since its pear tree related why arent the pears ripening? speaking of pruning i had to prune it this year because the branches were snapping from the weight of the pears and made mowing difficult with the tractor so I said heck with it. Still got plently of branches left for afew but as mentioned in above post, they just bend with the weight.

Do you know the cultivar?

Generally there are three types. Dessert pears, the soft juicy eating type can be hard or soft at picking. Generally the hard ones are storage types and will soften after a period of cold storage. Hard cooking types, often crosses of european and sand pears can range from hard when ripe to soft. Perry pears, or pears bred for making perry or pear hard cider. Uncommon in the US.

The hard pears are best for canning in heavy syrup. Canning softens them up. I have 5 hard pear trees, which we can the pears from.

Keith

Those hard ones are what my dad called Christmas pears .
Pick them and wrap them in newspaper , store in the caller and they ripen around Christmas .
Canning them makes sense , as bartlet pears get too soft to can if not canned right away .

I only trim bottom branches hanging over driveway. My last yrs crop and this yrs crop are the best in 30 yrs.

The proper term is pruning. Trimming is what we do with Christmas trees. I can't do much better in advice to what is already given by Warrior. I do know that D'anjou pollinates Bartlets and vice versa.

Getting some mason bee colonies going will help with pollination. Honeybees don't particularly care for pear bloom.

Yup, on the honey bees. Pears are poor nectar producers and bloom at a time when other sources of nectar are available.

I've got hundreds of acres of the detestable callery/bradford invasive pear around me. The whole area is white with bloom. Not a bee on any of it.

Bees can be "tricked" into working pears to a degree by planting more desirable trees or cultivars, apples for instance, in a block of pears.

D'anjou is my favorite dessert pear. Can't stand a Bartlett. Neither do well here. Our wet stormy springs make fireblight the limiting factor on which pears will survive here.

Asian Pear varieties tend to stay crisp and hard for a long time.

Great advice. We pruned our orchards in February and left the limbs for the rabbits and deer. The suckle pears are the best for canning, never got a taste for Bartlet pears.

Good question! You can prune fruit trees around the end of February to early March before they leaf out with temps under 50 degrees. Fire blight is an issue with temps over 50 degrees.

You can’t fight the natural shape of the tree, but you can correct branches growing in the wrong places by removing them. Branches growing straight up, down or into the tree should be removed. Double branches or any branch rubbing another branch, should be removed. You want to let the air flow through the tree.
Google pruning trees for pictures.

Many fruit trees get fertilizer from the lawn that promotes leaf growth, not fruit. Too much nitrogen! Look for a fruit tree fertilizer to use to slow the growth and produce fruit.

Good luck!

My pear trees aren't doing so well. I planted two of them about 5 years ago as bare root from the Arbor Day Foundation. Here's a picture of what they look like that I took today. The main leader died but several other shoots have come up, but it's barely over knee high. I wonder if they were poorly grafted

The new growth is coming from the root stock more than likely. Arbor Day Foundation while good in theory for what they stand for is a poor place to buy trees from, their quality is not typically good and they have a poor storage facility for their dormant trees. If that is as much regrowth as you have had I wouldnt bother with even trying to regraft them.

I'm not going to try regrafting them. Nor am I going to buy anymore trees from Arbor Day. I've had a lot of trouble with trees from them.